Sunday, March 15, 2015

Yes. I watched BBC's "India's daughter" documentary. It came to my attention only due to the Indian government's ill conceived insistence on banning it. I probably wouldn't have known of its existence otherwise.

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As someone who has actually seen the full documentary as opposed to the "Modiji ne usko kharaab bolaa toh kharaab hi hogaa" camp, let me address the most ridiculous accusation made against it - that it is 'pro-rapist'. BULLSHIT.

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Watch the nearly hour long documentary where the proud but devastated parents of Nirbhaya discuss the great tragedy that December 16th brought into their lives and the horrifying opinions on women held by one of the accused & his two lawyers are recorded. Watch it and tell me that you came up on the side of the rapists. Tell me that you thought the monsters had some valid points. Tell me that Nirbhaya "deserved it". I challenge you to. I dare you to.

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The other, trickier to defend accusation against the documentary is that it is 'anti India'. Rape is not a crime restricted to India nor is subjugation of women. So why pick on India? Why not make a documentary on the rape happening in all the 'developed' countries? Why the holier-than-thou attitude towards our country?

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Unfortunately, that accusation again has its roots in the Vedic age space planes and plastic surgery BS peddled by the chaddi-wallahs. We can do no wrong. There can be nothing wrong about our country, no scope for improvement (in the perfect culture of our perfect religion), an opinion very proudly echoed by one of the lawyers in the documentary sitting in front of rows of books which I suppose he never read. If anything bad happened, it was the girl's fault.

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The facts state that the horror story of December 16th happened on the streets of our nation's capital. The incessant ads for fairness creams on primetime TV re-inforce that the value of a woman is only in her beauty, that too a certain fair-skinned version of it. Our women are expected to be home when the sun goes down, because that is the only way to ensure their 'protection'.

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As awareness grows, gender discrimination is indeed being talked about in certain privileged circles but to claim that it is no longer an issue is laughable. Even more so is the bogus claim by the Asaram Bapus and Mohan Bhagwats that it wasn't even a problem in our society, before foreigners (read Muslims, Christians et al) brought that concept in.

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Agreed that India is far from the worst culprit in the list of medieval attitudes towards women but Saudi Arabia really should not be a benchmark in this context. The only chance for improvement can come if the faults are accepted, not if we continue to deny their existence.

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Yes, terribly racist cases like the German professor who refused to guide male Indian students because of India's "rape culture" will crop up from time to time inspite of all the efforts that we as a society put in, but that doesn't mean that we should not see the problem for what it is. Proud for India we must be but not to the extent of making every criticism a foreign conspiracy.

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Poverty, ignorance, economic power sharing are all societal factors which play into aggravating India's issues with women's equality. Discussing the issues and their solutions is not anti-India, it is a baby step forward into a bright and equal future. "But it happens in the US too" should not be cause enough for inaction here. India is our country and we want it to improve. What other countries do or do not do should not be of any concern to our situation.

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Watch the documentary and feel ashamed. But not too ashamed. That watching the documentary made you angry is a positive sign. Channel that anger into something productive, into changing long ingrained attitudes, into launching a revolution for India's daughters.